


Placebo Effect

by Falafel_Waffel



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Mentions of molestation/rape, Suicide, the story is about drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 10:01:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4096735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falafel_Waffel/pseuds/Falafel_Waffel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emotions are scary, maybe that's why Katniss Everdeen chose the pipe instead of feeling them. Now, at the bottom of the bottom she has two choices: get clean or die alone in her dirty apartment. Written for Fandom4LLS 2 years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prolouge

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank Chelzie for betaing, Fairmellarky for pre-reading, RoNordman for the banner, and you, where ever you are on this planet, thank you for taking time out of your day to read this.
> 
> Since this fic is complete I will be posting it all at once. This will be the only note you see.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.

 

* * *

 

_Prologue - Effie_

She looks as though she’s unaware that camera has been on her for a good long while. Her eyes are dull and cloudy, like the hundredth rainy day in a row, when she finally speaks into the camera. This isn’t an addict who’s being forced into rehab by a well-wishing family. No… this woman has no more options. Whatever pushed her to submit an application has made her realize that she has no more strings to grasp at.

“My name is Katniss Everdeen…” She’s groggy and moves constantly, either to stay awake or to distract herself. “And I am addicted to crystal meth. I’ve spent the last eight years lying, stealing, and prostituting to pay for my habit.” She’s tiny; if I saw her on the street, I’d guess that she’s maybe seventeen, if that. A large gust of wind would blow her away.

“I lost custody of my daughter, and–” Her little hands shoot up to her face, which is marked by scabs from where she’s scratched off the skin. Her rough complexion is the only thing that would make me guess she’s over eighteen. The only noise on the tape is a loud sob.

“What else do we have on her?” Haymitch asks, sneaking up behind me.

I try to pretend that he didn’t scare me and open the manila folder containing her application. “Katniss Everdeen, twenty five years old, charged with prostitution and assault. Only served house arrest, but has mandatory rehab. Never married, has one child, an Avery Hawthorne… in her mother’s custody.” I flip the page, “The father was incarcerated last year for negligent homicide. The longest she’s been sober since age fifteen was six months.”

Haymitch doesn’t say anything, which could be good for the girl, or bad. We try to take in the worst of the worst. The girl on the tape is a walking skeleton. She’s lost everything, which makes her a perfect candidate.

“Get her in. We have a bed for detox open, give her the rundown. You’re picking up that other client tomorrow, right? The heroin addict?”

I nod and watch as he takes the paper with her current address on it. “The boy and sweetheart right here live five blocks from each other. If he didn’t OD on his last hurrah, he should be ripe and miserable. Call me if you need anything.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Katniss_

It’s hard to say goodbye. I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing in my studio apartment and I don’t really care. Mom agreed to come through and clean it up; I won’t be back here, and I don’t care.

I don’t really own anything of value because I sold it all for meth. The one thing I still have is my car, an ancient Camry I used to share with…

I’m not sure how I got to my Mom’s house; sometimes I have blackouts but still go about my day. The last thing I need to do before going inside is check my purse for any illegals. My pipe is still cold; a simple tube of glass with a bulb at the end, clouded by white residue. I crank the window down and dangle the cold glass shackles tying me to my master out into the blazing summer sun. It slips from my fingers and I hear it shatter. I should care, but bouts of apathy are normal for me these days.

I don’t even get high anymore, so what’s the use? I just get myself to a ‘normal’ state where I can function. No more euphoria, no more days on end without sleep, because why sleep when there’s more meth to keep me awake? All of that is ending at three today when Miss Effie Trinket takes me away to detox and rehab.

It’s fancy speak for ‘get me clean so I can learn how to be an adult’… so I can get Avery back. The rehab is court mandated since I broke a cunt’s nose last year. The second condition was my mother’s idea. She’ll agree to go to court and let the judge determine if I’m fit to help raise my daughter, but only if I can stay clean.

Step one, get clean… The lingering aroma of marijuana in my Camry isn’t a good start.

“Avery!” my mother starts when I walk in without knocking, “You have a visitor.”

I get to spend one more afternoon with her.

“Momma!” My little girl is almost four now and I’m missing all of it… it’s one of the few things I care about.

She looks like a smaller version of me. A head full of thick hair that hasn’t quite lost its curl yet, grey eyes that are still bright and full of light. The world hasn’t stolen the shine from them.

“Are you nervous?” my mother asks gently, handing my daughter a sandwich. She knows that I barely eat anymore, especially on a day like today.

 _You’re going willingly…_ I tell myself over and over again. _You’re going for her…_

I kiss the top of Avery’s head. “Yes,” I answer honestly. I’m already emotionally exhausted and I know it’s just going to get worse. I’ve been through withdrawal once, but with weed as my back-up to keep me from jumping off a bridge. “What if I can’t do it?” I ask, already tearing up.

My mother doesn’t really know what to tell me. She doesn’t understand how fully addiction takes over your life. It’s not something that you do to feel nice; it’s a fuck up that turns into the only reason you wake up. It makes you suck cock in the back of a grocery store parking lot just to get enough crystal to get through the day. It’s choosing to pay for a little plastic baggie of shit instead of food, formula, or rent. It’s choosing to be homeless, because who needs a house when you have a pipe?

Not too long ago, the only thing that mattered was the white cloud of smoke that came out of me after a good hit.

I’ve slipped into another blackout. When I come to, my parole officer is here. They technically put me on house arrest, but they know the only two places I’m allowed to go - my shitty apartment and my mother’s, and the route I have to take. I can see my daughter… I just can’t live in the same house as her yet.

Darius looks at me the same way he always does, like I’m a pitiful charity case. Begrudgingly, I get off the couch and hand my half-awake daughter to my mother. “We were just getting to the good part,” I tell him, pointing to the TV where _Finding Nemo_ , Avery’s favorite movie, is still playing. I don’t even remember Mom putting it in.

He shrugs, “Going to cut you free. Miss Trinket should be here any minute now.”

I pull up my pant leg, my government issued bracelet loose on my ankle. They don’t make them small enough for me, apparently. I can’t get it off my foot, but it shifts when I walk, causing a bruise on the underside of the bone that sticks out on the side.

The funny thing is Darius and I went to high school together. Well, he was three years ahead of me, but we still went to the same school. We had the same education, yet he’s clean and I’m being ordered into rehab. It’s either this, or go to prison and detox in a tiny cell, with little to no support or chance of getting custody of my child back.

As he tells me my responsibilities, I just remind myself that my Mom is only keeping Avery out of the system. He tells me that after detox I’ll have to go for a drug test; if they find anything in my system, I’ll be taken to prison to serve my five years for felony assault and beating a bitch within an inch of her life.

Finally, he gets to the fun part. “When was the last time you used an illicit substance?” He used to give me a list, but he knows my regulars.

“About three hours ago, marijuana.” If I wasn’t going to rehab, this would get me sent to prison. Hell, he could still cart me off if he wanted to.

The sound of the doorbell nearly sends me out of my skin, but now that my new keeper is here I can only watch as Darius frees me from my shackles.

Effie Trinket doesn’t look like someone who brings in lost causes from the edge and turns them into functioning humans. She looks like she should be on a runway. Tall as fuck with little to no curves, but unlike me, she looks healthy. In her platinum blonde hair is one pink streak that some women get for breast cancer month, though it’s summer. She’s done this of her own volition. She must love the fucking color because she’s sporting a matching pink Jackie-O suit and heels.

“Hello, Miss Everdeen. I’m Effie Trinket.” She offers me a perfectly manicured hand and only cringes a little when she sees my bitten down nails and scabby hands.

Darius and Effie go over some preliminary paperwork while I rock in my chair and try to stay focused.

That I’m going of my own volition, yes. Apparently, the most successful addicts are the ones who _want_ to get better. I want to stop this bullshit. I want to start living for me, not for meth.

The fact that I understand this is a substitution for my prison sentence and if I fail any drug test, I will be immediately sent to jail.

Because of this fact, I cannot check myself out until they deem me to be stable enough to live on my own.

I effectively sign away my life to Miss Effie Trinket and hug my mother. “Make sure she knows I love her…” I beg quietly, “And that I’m doing all of this for her.”

Once I get in the car, I won’t be able to contact anyone on the outside until they say I can. It could be weeks, or even months.

Avery wakes up from her catnap, as if she can sense that I’m being taken away. “Momma, where are you going again?” she asks, latching onto my leg.

I get down on her level so I can look her in the eye. “Momma’s going somewhere so they can make her better,” I stroke her cheek with my thumb. “So you and I can be a family again.”

Her face contorts. “Are they taking you because I was bad?” She looks to Darius, “I promise I’ll be good! Please don’t take her away!”

I know I should cry, but I’m already numb. “Baby, you didn’t do anything wrong. I was the bad one, remember?” She looks unconvinced. “I’m just going away for a little bit. It won’t be long and when I come back, I’ll be better. I won’t be sick anymore.”

I don’t want to let go. I don’t want her to slip from my arms, but Effie and Darius pull me to my feet and into Effie’s Lexus.

“Do you have any other bags, dear?” she asks as she puts the key into the ignition. Much to my surprise, Darius gets in as well. Apparently I have to remain in his custody until I’m fully admitted.

Clothes are the only things I’m allowed to bring. Toiletries will be provided because apparently, it’s possible to sneak shit into detox in bottles. All of my clothes fit into one large duffel bag.

“Nope…”

She nods and we make eye contact in the rear view. “Alright, we have one more to pick up. It’s a little unconventional, but important we get him in as soon as possible.”

I don’t even give a fuck. Instead, I watch my mother’s house disappear.

Darius takes the front seat once the other person is loaded into the car. He’s thin, but isn’t skin and bones. I didn’t see him walk up to the car - he just kind of appeared in the seat next to me, but he takes up so much space.

He extends his hand while I try and press myself up against the door to get as much space between us as possible. I look at his arm as it gets near me. _Track marks… heroin._

“I’m Peeta, and you are?”

I press myself closer to the window. “Don’t talk to me,” I snap instead of introducing myself. I really meant to introduce myself.

He doesn’t seem too spurned by it at first. Addicts are used to being shunned, even from their own kind; though as a tweaker, I’m kind of the lowest of the low.

“Didn’t you suck my dick for like fifteen bucks a few months back?” he asks, five minutes into the drive.

I shove him into the other door as hard as I can, but he barely budges.

“Mister Mellark!” Effie scolds from the front seat like we’re children, because basically we are. Needy, tall children…

“I was just trying to start a fucking conversation!”

“Give me your fucking belt,” I hiss. “I’ll find a vein for you. Want your last hurrah?”

Effie slams on the brakes and parks the car on the side of the road. She reminds both of us that if we don’t behave, I will end up in prison and Peeta will end up in a coffin.

We don’t even look at each other for the rest of the ride.

 

* * *

 

 

The heroin addict and I are separated once we reach the detox and taken to individual intake rooms.

The detox and the rehab happen on the same plot of land - a harmless looking farm with access to a large lake in the middle of fucking nowhere Pennsylvania, simply called Panem.

“You will be granted a week of detox where you will not be expected to attend any group meetings. On day seven, we will drug test and assess you. When you prove to be clean at the seven day mark, you will start the rehabilitation process.” The man’s name is Haymitch Abernathy, and apparently he’s an ex-alcoholic.

“When that happens, then what?” I ask curiously.

Haymitch swivels in his chair. “Your day will start every morning at eight am, a quick walk, breakfast, group meetings. We’ll probably start you with one for the first few days, then individual counseling.”

He hands me a key on a heart with a pewter lock keychain. I want to ask him whether the keychain is a fucking joke, but I choose not to.

“Your only job right now is to make your bed and get in it. The women’s washroom is the one with the ‘W’ on it. You’ll find whatever you need to keep yourself clean in your room. Shower at your leisure, but don’t stink up the place, sweetheart.”

I spin the key around on my bony fingers and get up from the chair. “Any other questions before I cut you loose?”

“Any advice on how to get through this?” I ask him quietly.

“Do whatever you have to do to stay alive. The crash is the easy part. You’ll sleep through it and we’ll let you. After that, if you’re going to beat this, you’ll have to be the one to get yourself out of bed, even though it’s going to seem like you’re climbing Everest. I will advise you to try and eat first, though.”

I already feel myself crashing as I wander through the halls looking for my room. I have no roommate, so there’s no one to watch me cry as I make my bed. If I were on the streets, I would be looking to score. Now I’m just looking to go comatose for a few days so I can prepare for the worst of it.

“Knock, knock!” an unfamiliar voice greets just as I get to tucking in my sheets. “Fresh meat… nice!” He looks me over with his bright green eyes. There’s still some light in them, or maybe it’s returning. Detox rooms do become patient’s rooms for rehab here…

He has no issues entering my room in only his boxers. “So I just scored some sweet shit off this dope fiend… Wanna… you know…” I watch as he rolls something white between his fingers. It’s tempting, oh so tempting to get one last high, no matter what it is, before the hell starts.

Then I think of Avery… and everyone else I’ve disappointed. “I’m trying to get clean.”

He pops the thing in his mouth right in front of me. “Me too, good thing it’s a tic-tac,” he tells me before sticking out his tongue. Sure enough, the ‘pill’ is just a breath mint. “Want one?”

“Will it make you leave?” I ask bitterly. I just want to sleep, I need to sleep, all I need in the world is sleep.

“Sure, why not?”

I hold out my hand and let him shake a mint into my palm. It crunches under my molars. “She passed the test!” he shouts out the door.

“Test?” I ask while putting my pillowcase on my pillow.

The man shrugs, “You’re going to need people you can trust. Even as people are taken in, you’ll need people. We needed to make sure you could be trusted.”

“Fantastic, now get out.”

The man waves me off and leaves without a goodbye. The last thing I remember is flicking the light switch. After that the fog takes over, enticing me with the promise of sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The sound of vomiting wakes me up. Not my own, fortunately, but it’s coming from the bathroom across the hall. I don’t know why, but I get right up and walk straight into the men’s room.

It’s the heroin addict, Peeta, enjoying one of the perks of his withdrawal – nausea and vomiting. It’s three in the morning, so probably insomnia as well. When he’s done, he looks me dead in the eye. I’ve never seen fear like that before in my life, and I never want to see it again.

“Can I pee here?” I ask, realizing that I have no idea how long I’ve been out, and I might just piss myself. He doesn’t respond. “If I get you something to rinse your mouth out, will you not tell them that I used this bathroom?”

He nods and I fill a few Dixie cups with water, setting them on the back of the toilet before going down a few stalls.

I barely have my pants down and he’s at it again.

I leave the bathroom without thanking him and head to the kitchen. It’s a hazy walk full of accidental wall bumps and a near fistfight with a lamp, but I get there in one piece.

The only thing I can figure out how to cook at this point is toast with jam. I take my dinner, along with a sleeve of saltines and some ginger ale, back to the bathroom. The tic-tac man was right, maybe I will need allies to get through this… Either way, if I give Peeta stuff to settle his stomach, maybe he won’t rat on me for using the men’s room. I don’t think it’s a bad offense, but it still can’t be good.

He’s rinsing his mouth out again when I come back in. “What are you doing?” he croaks, completely out of breath.

I sit down on the floor just outside of the stall. “I figured someone should make sure you don’t puke up all of your large intestine…”

He only has shorts on, so I can see all of the silvery scars from his injections. They’re everywhere - his arms, his legs, his feet, even a few on his neck. “Plus, crackers and ginger ale settle the stomach…”

I already feel the fatigue coming again. I want my food, I want my bed. The man looks pissed that I even offered to help him, then his face softens and he takes my offering with trembling hands. My toast is cold when I finally bite into it, but I can’t stop watching Peeta’s hands shake as he nibbles on a cracker.

“You talk in your sleep…” he says vaguely, “A lot.”

I frown because I don’t remember dreaming. “What was I saying?” Of course the walls are made of paper. These people must need as many methods as possible to make sure we aren’t using.

“You kept asking for someone named Prim…” he tells me while struggling with a soda. His fingers can’t even get the tab open.

“Here,” I say, holding out my hand and I almost drop the soda when he hands it over. It’s so shaken up that it sprays me in the face. Peeta snorts and mumbles something about me being used to getting sprayed in the face. I resist the urge to use the drawstring of my shorts to strangle him. After a few sips, he offers me the rest of his soda.

“Ew, no, you were just puking.”

“Figured you’d be thirsty. Plus, my biley spit can’t be the worst thing you’ve ever had in your mouth.”

He’s trying to make a joke, an inappropriate one, but still a joke. I give him the benefit of the doubt and chug; he’s right, I was thirsty. The soda is deliciously sweet and lets me forget the craving for my master in the back of my head. Then Peeta is over the toilet again and I lose the taste for ginger ale, hopefully for the rest of my life.

I head back to bed shortly after that. There’s nothing else I can do for him. His mind has to beat this so the body can follow.

Peeta disappears from Panem. In my fog, I hear people say he was taken to the hospital for severe dehydration. I try not to focus on his setback and focus on my own triumphs. I’ve been clean for four days. Granted, I’ve been in and out of a horrible fog for most of that time, but still. I’m clean.

Squeaky clean.

Unless someone hands me a phone, then I’d try to score the second I stepped over the threshold.

After I mangle a can of chicken noodle soup and decide to only drink the broth, I head back to bed. I feel more tired than normal.

I don’t make it back to bed, because the hardwood floor is good enough. I pull whatever I can of my sheets from the bed and let the fog completely cloud my mind.

 

* * *

 

I don’t want to remember this day… Can I dream about anything else instead?

I used to always have this dream and meth chased it away for a few hours. Now meth is gone and the dream is back. Of course it came back.

The car pulls up to the hospital where Prim works. My sister, the nurse, of whom I couldn’t be more proud.  Then I see who’s driving. I can only see the back of Gale’s head, but I know he only comes to this part of the city when his supply is out. The car reeks of burned plastic. “Prim, don’t get in the car,” I tell her as she approaches. She’s so sweet and innocent. Of course she’ll get in the car of her niece’s father.

She’ll notice the smell and think nothing of it.

“Prim,” I warn her as she buckles her seat belt. “Get the fuck out, take the bus. You have the money.”

Gale starts to pull out of the parking lot. She can’t hear me; neither of them can, so I yell.

“PRIM! GET OUT OF THE CAR! YOU’RE GOING TO-“

I’m thrown as the #5 bus rams into my sister’s side of the car.

“Katniss!” I’m thrown again. _What’s happening?_ “Katniss! You’re just dreaming!”

I force my eyes to open no matter how thick the fog.

“Peeta?”  He’s supposed to be in the hospital… what is he doing in my room?

Much to my surprise, he pulls me into a hug. “Are you okay?” he asks, smoothing down my hair over and over as my heartbeat slows down.

I don’t give a fuck why he’s in here. I cling to his wife-beater and fight my tears, even though some sneak through.

Peeta helps me back into bed once the cloud comes back. I almost want to ask him to stay, but if I do, we’ll be the talk of the rehab.

“If you wake up and need some company, I’m just next door. Not like I get sleep anymore,” he shrugs in my doorframe. “Heroin, man… should be medication for the narcoleptics…”

I hear myself laugh before I’m gone again.

Another day or so goes by, like a slow hell. I’m always tired, always thirsty, always hungry. I get up and walk around for a little bit before napping, but what does it matter? My naps are never long enough, nor does the entire fridge have enough food to satisfy me.

I just sleep in my dark, quiet room, festering in my own filth and trying not to claw my eyes out from the thought of making the phone call to submit myself to my old master again.

There’s a knocking at my door too early. I just want to sleep, but it won’t go away. “Miss Everdeen, time to get up!”

It must be day seven…

The haze is still here. It’s not a pleasant drunken haze, but more like someone’s placed a translucent bag over my head and loosely taped it. I can get some air, but not enough to be alive.

It takes me a minute, but I pull myself from my bed and head into the bathroom. There’s a woman in there I’ve never seen before. Her dark hair is cut short and she ignores me as I splash water on my face and attempt to brush my teeth, but end up drooling toothpaste all over my shirt.

The woman snorts, “Aww, you’ll get it right eventually…” she says, patting my head like I’m just a dumb, confused puppy.

When I get back to my room, there’s a small bowl of oatmeal on my nightstand. I’ve never been so hungry in my life. I don’t care where it came from and five seconds after discovering it, it’s in my stomach.

There’s ten or so of us here, and no one tries to introduce themselves on our walk. I assumed that we’d be walking around the front lawn like corralled animals. Instead, we follow a worn trail in the grass straight into the tree line.

It pulls me out of my fog somewhat. Everywhere there are birds chirping, twigs snapping. I want to push further into the forest, but we loop around and head back to the main house where we all share a quiet breakfast. Most people pick at their food, but a few people dive in like me. Apparently it’s normal; once the fog starts to wear off, the fatigue is replaced by the undeniable need to feed.

A few people talk amongst themselves, but most everyone is still groggy so when I’m satisfied, I leave the table and head to the shower. It’s been over a week since I’ve cleaned myself, and even when I was being ridden by clients all night long, I never let myself get this filthy.

Sobriety isn’t about getting yourself clean, it’s slowly coming alive again. The shower is so warm and I never want to leave because I don’t know how long it will be until my next fog coma. Maybe I’m done with them, or maybe I’m waking up.

 

* * *

 

 

Haymitch sits at what I guess is the top of the circle. “A few ground rules – first, no nodding off. We respect each other; what is said here should never be used against someone. You can curse, you can yell, you can cry. I don’t give a fuck, just participate. Everyone has to speak. Now, let’s go around and introduce ourselves. My name is Haymitch. I am an addict, and I have been sober for close to twenty years.”

Effie speaks up next. “I’m Effie. I am an addict, and I’ve been sober for fifteen years.”

People go around introducing themselves and include how long they’ve been sober.

“My name is Finnick, and I am an addict. Today is my thirtieth day sober.”

“My name is Johanna. I am an addict and I’m twenty-two days sober.”

 “I’m Peeta,” I start fully paying attention now, it’s not like I couldn’t guess. He got here the same day I did. “I’m an addict who has been sober for seven days.”

The room goes quiet and I realize everyone’s eyes are on me. “What? Oh… Katniss. I’m an addict, and I’ve been sober for seven days.”

There is no ‘welcome to the group’ here, you’re just automatically thrown to the sharks. We have Finnick, a male model who used to do lines of coke instead of eat; Johanna, who was addicted to pills; two trippy looking people who must have been so far over the edge they stopped looking like people. They liked their morphine.

There’s LSD users, three cokeheads to every heroin addict, and finally me, the only meth head. Today they want us to face what’s so appealing about our addiction. Some people say the rush, some say it’s an escape.

I’m already fading out by the time they get to me, hugging myself and trying to stay awake. “I like…” my voice fades off for a little bit, “The white puff of smoke that comes out of me after a really good hit…”

And I fucking miss it. I fucking miss blowing out clouds. I miss the euphoria. I miss not feeling like a zombie. My name is Katniss Everdeen, I’m an addict, and I miss crystal meth.

Haymitch tells us that there are better things than a dangerous rush, a mental escape, and a cloud of white smoke in the world. There’s falling in love, following your dreams, traveling the world. Apparently all of it is possible with sobriety.

After group, I have a one hour window that is supposed to be filled with exercise. There’s a full gym on the farm, but I want to go back to the woods.

“Haymitch?” I ask once the room is starting to clear out. “Does my exercise have to be in the gym or can I go hiking again?”

“We’d rather not let clients go off into the forest alone,” he tells me as gently as possible. What am I going to find in the forest to smoke, some nice bark?

“I’ll go,” a voice offers. I don’t even have to turn around to know it’s Peeta. He must feel bad for all the whore jokes he made in my direction.

Haymitch looks between the two of us, two addicts alone in the woods. What’s the best that could happen? What’s the worst?

Haymitch first points to me. “You have individual therapy in two hours, you in three. Don’t be late… especially you, sweetheart.”

I want to nap, but I know I shouldn’t. I want this little taste of freedom. Plus, what’s the point of napping? I’ll just wake up exhausted.

“Thank you,” I tell Peeta, just now realizing that I’m holding onto his track mark covered hand, dragging him back to the tree line.

He chuckles and the sound makes me feel warm inside. I think it’s what happiness feels like, but I honestly can’t remember. “I figured I owed you, plus that gym is cold as fuck.”

I nod and stop listening to him for now. In these trees, I feel my senses coming back, the fog lifting from my mind. In these trees, I’ll find my sobriety.

“So tell me about yourself,” he finally says as I watch a squirrel scurry around like an asshole as he looks for nuts.

I look up. “I’m a meth–”

He snorts, “I don’t give a fuck what you’re addicted to. That doesn’t define you, and you shouldn’t let it.  Who are _you_ , what do _you_ like?”

I kick at a rock. “I don’t know…” I bite my lip and sit down on the soft ground. “I don’t know what I like,” I laugh at the realization, “I’ve been addicted to drugs since I was seventeen. I barely graduated high school. Floated around with a guy for a few years, prostituted as you apparently know… he got me pregnant maybe…” I look up at Peeta, “You?”

He doesn’t give me the backstory I want, he actually has interests. “I love painting. I want to get my shit in a gallery someday. Heroin used to kind of open my mind; it’s hard to describe, but it only lasted for a week or so…. then it became about when I’d get more dope. After that, it was finding veins in dark alleys, speed balls, and pawning my Dad’s shit.”

The air is heavy with his confession, as if there’s something hanging there that he’s still holding back. I barely know the guy, of course he has secrets.

We decide to head back instead of making them come and find us. Plus, Peeta says he has to go back for his medication, stuff that lessens the side effects of his detox.

“It only takes the edge off,” he confesses. “One gets rid of the nausea, the other stops the pain and shaking,” he laughs nervously. “I’m twenty-seven and I’ve never wanted to be in bed in the fetal position more in my life.”

I’m inclined to agree, so I distract him from his pity party before it spreads to me. “I used to dance, before meth,” I don’t even give him a chance to come up with a quip. “I wanted to be a ballerina as a child, but I wasn’t graceful or fluid enough so I did more modern shit,” I grin smugly, “I could have been a Rockette, except I’m a little too short.”

He smiles and I know he’s right. Meth isn’t who I am; it can’t be what defines me or what controls me. I control me.

 

* * *

 

We hike every day as the haze leaves my life. It’s the only place in the world where I feel joy. Well, maybe not joy yet, more like peaceful.

Peeta and I have been here for close to a month when Effie takes him away for the day. I like our talks. He has two brothers, but lived with his father. He’s afraid of small dark places, spiders and thunderstorms.

He never asks me how I started using, but it’s not like he doesn’t give a shit about it. He does actually - a lot of shits, I might add.

I’m surprised to say I give a shit about his recovery as well. I don’t care how heroin came into his life, just that it stays out. One of the worst side effects of his withdrawal is insomnia. I can get a full eight hours no matter when or where I drop, but Peeta is lucky to get an hour of sleep at a time.

They don’t care what we do at night; that is… they don’t care who we socialize with as long as clothes stay on and what not. Several nights a week, Peeta finds himself sitting on my bed, telling me about things he watched on TV today or stuff he wants to bring up in group.

I feel bad, but I always fall asleep during our talks and when I wake up in the morning, he’s gone.

I wish he could stay, even for just one night. When he’s on the other side of my bed, I don’t have the dream about Prim.

I take my seat in the forest. After a month-ish of being sober, they trust me enough to wander in the woods and come back. It hasn’t been easy; a week ago, the cloudiness, fatigue, and overall meth-hangover made me want to use again so badly that I had to lock myself away so no one could see me like that. I didn’t want them to think I was failing.

It was Johanna who found me. She’s one of the only people here who I actually like. Most of the other people fit into the category of addict we call “The Careers” - the ones who have been in and out of rehab over and over. This is a last chance kind of place so if it doesn’t work, they’ll find home in either a jail cell or a body bag.

Johanna pulled me out of that dark corner and dragged me to group, claiming that she made me late because she needed a tampon. We were 30 minutes late, so Haymitch asked if we had to crochet it ourselves.

I smile at the memory. I’m not happy here, but I’m content. I’m at peace.

That is until I hear the silence of the woods. I realize it’s not the trees that make me happy. I mean, sure, they help… but it’s really been Peeta. The realization terrifies me; I know I need allies, but not someone I depend on.

I want to separate myself from him so I don’t risk making him relapse or hurt his kind heart, but we help each other. It’s what we do, and it’s gotten us this far. It’ll get us out into the real world, I hope.

At dinner, everyone ignores the empty seat; everyone but me, that is. Haymitch and Effie join us at the long table, telling us a story about this old dog Effie once owned whose sexual orientation was expensive furniture.

“Where’s Peeta?” I ask, interrupting someone mid-sentence.

Peeta’s appetite is just starting to come back, so he never misses a meal and I don’t think he’s still getting sick.

Haymitch pops a carrot into his mouth. “Peeta wasn’t feeling well this afternoon, so he’s resting in his room.” Something in his voice tells me that what he really means is that Peeta should be left alone.

So naturally I ignore it and knock on his door the second dinner is over and free time begins.

“Peeta, it’s me,” I call through the wood. “Can I come in?”

There’s a thump and a grunt before I hear his heavy footsteps approach the door. It swings open a second later, but he’s already heading back to his bed. I don’t close the door when I enter. They prefer we leave them open if there’s more than one of us in a room.

He’s already on his back on the bed when my eyes adjust to the darkness. “I’m sorry I missed our walk…” he mumbles as I join him.

I move closer, watching as the sinking mattress makes him roll a little. “It’s okay.” It has to be. Sure, I missed him, but he was doing something for his recovery.

He takes my hand and closes his eyes. He’s already starting to look healthy; his skin is still littered with scars, but he’s filling out to match his broad shoulders.

I’ve been told that my complexion has been evening out and I’m no longer a walking skeleton.

“I’m so tired,” he admits. “Always tired. But I can’t sleep, _it_ just keeps me awake,” his face contorts in pain, either from muscle aches or an emotion that comes to the surface. “Every inch of me hurts. I had to go see my fucking mother today to bury the hatchet or face my demons, or whatever that shit is… And all I could think about was how easy it would be for me to get just enough dope to make the pain stop. I wanted to run away from Effie, jack someone’s phone and call my guy. Fuck, I’d give him the phone for the shit.” As he confesses, I sit up a little to get a better look at his face.

“What stopped you?”

He snorts, “The opportunity to call my mother a bitchy cunt.”

He never mentions his mother, ever. And honestly, I thought she had died.

“She liked to hit me and my brothers. Once the older two got too big and started to hit back, she came after me… constantly. My old man grew a set, divorced her and got custody of the three of us,” he sighs long and hard, like he’s pushing his grief out of his body. “I’ve always wondered why I wasn’t good enough to deserve the love of my own mother…”

I bite my lip, wishing I had an answer for him.

He rolls to his side to look up at me. “Come here…” he pleads, holding out an arm. He wants to cuddle, I think.

“No… the door’s open. What if someone walks by?”

He shrugs, “I don’t care. I’m aching and you’re like an oven.”

Peeta rests his hand on my shoulder, a completely innocent place, but my heart starts racing. I feel like we’re being watched, like any second now Haymitch or Effie are going to come through the door and kick my ass to the street just for being here.

Suddenly, my twiggy arm gives out and I crash into his chest. The panic is gone, the fog disappears a little more, and the warmth in my chest is back.

“I think I’m happy…” I confess after about a half hour of trying to get my breathing to match his.

When he doesn’t respond, I look up only to see his closed eyes and completely relaxed face. For the first time in who knows how long, Peeta Mellark is sound asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It’s been forty-five days since I arrived at Panem. During that time, I’ve shared almost every little bit of myself with complete strangers because I finally found people I could relate to.

They’ve tried to teach me how to write checks, balance a checkbook, and apply for jobs. They’re trying to make me into an adult the courts will allow to raise Avery.

Today is what we like to call autobiography day, where we share our stories from birth to today. It also means that since most of us are just as fucked up as the person next to us, if not more so, group has been extended.

I stand at my chair when it’s finally my turn. “On the eighth of May, 1988, my mother gave birth to me in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When I was a little girl, she told me that hearing my cry made her happier than she had ever been in her life. Little did she know all the pain and suffering I’d actually bring. Four years later, my little sister Primrose was born and my family was complete. We were happy, or so I assumed.” I pause, mostly because my brain has gotten overloaded from the reading and I need to let it catch up.

“When I was ten, my bipolar schizophrenic father brought home a gun and shot himself in the head as we sat down for dinner. My mother blamed herself for my father’s death, like she knew what was happening inside his head. She became suicidal herself and checked herself into the mental hospital, leaving Primrose and I to fend for ourselves in the foster care system,” I pause again as my hands start shaking.

“I was eleven when it happened. My foster father, the man who was supposed to nurture and keep me safe, came into my room late at night. I can still hear the click of the lock and feel his hand cover my mouth so I didn’t scream as he undressed me. I can’t remember much more of that night, other than sneaking into the bathroom after he left to wash the blood off of me. He did this at least weekly, sometimes more, for close to six months until my mother regained custody of Prim and I.” I wipe a tear from my cheek with the back of my hand, unaware that I’ve been crying. “I never told anyone about what that man did to me.”

“I don’t know what makes people do such horrible things to children, but I’m thankful his eyes were on me and not my sister. I was thirteen when Gale moved in next door. He was two years older than me and our mothers said it was love at first sight. Unfortunately, it was a love that destroyed my life. By age fifteen, I couldn’t make it through the day without a drink. At seventeen, I was doing lines of cocaine off the dashboard of Gale’s car and not too long after, the pipe owned my life. I made it through high school only because it was the one place my mother wasn’t. I blamed her for leaving Prim and I in foster care and letting _him_ violate me, though now I know that she couldn’t help it.  Gale and I got an apartment together on my eighteenth birthday and to pay for it, I started selling my body so I could support my habit. I was twenty when I found out I was pregnant and it was the longest period where Tina wasn’t in my life.”

I want to stop talking and sit down. What I’m about to say was hard enough to put down on paper, let alone read out loud. The courts should have taken Avery away from me the day I gave birth. It’s hard to read my sloppy handwriting on the shaking paper, now dotted by my own tears. Then there’s a warmth behind me and I know without looking that it’s Peeta. One of his large hands rests on my shoulder, the other on my arm, giving me a reassuring squeeze. He doesn’t judge me for my past or anything else I’ve done.

“I couldn’t get through the day sober, though. I continued to smoke weed and cigarettes and occasionally drink throughout my entire pregnancy. Gale was arrested when I was four months along and I was homeless for a while because not enough people were willing to hire a pregnant hooker. My mother took me in, not because she wanted to, but because she couldn’t let her granddaughter be born on the streets. I sold some of the jewelry my father gave her for weed and stashed some of the leftover money so I could buy glass with it once I gave birth. I had every intention of giving my baby up until I held her on September 2nd. She was born a month early because of my irresponsibility, but she was mine and I knew nothing could take her from me at that point.”

“It was hard for me to raise Avery on my own, so my mother helped me. Sure, she stayed, but Mom had to pay for food and clothes since every dollar I owned went to my meth habit. Gale was released from prison when Avery was almost one. He loves her more than his own life, but not more than crack cocaine. It was a warm day close to two years ago when he decided he could smoke and pick up my sister Primrose from work. He was so out of it that he didn’t see the bus speeding down the road until it was too late. There was nothing left of the passenger seat in his car, and little to nothing left of my sister. I couldn’t even recognize her when my mother and I went to identify the body. They wanted to charge Gale with first degree murder and I fully agreed, but he got off with a fifteen year sentence for negligent homicide. A week after her death, his little brother Rory committed suicide. He was going to propose to Prim on their anniversary two weeks after her death. I know it’s selfish and horrible, but I like that Gale was forced to feel the pain he caused me. Gale was unable to go to the funeral.”

I lean into Peeta, letting him be my rock through this, just as I will be for him when he reads his autobiography. It’s what we do - we anchor each other in this confusing world of sobriety.

“I became very depressed and just stood there as the courts handed custody of my daughter to my mother. I am no longer allowed to live in the same house as her until I can prove that I am a responsible adult and that I can stay sober. At that point I wanted to die, but was too afraid to pull the trigger even though I had a loaded gun I traded sex for in my mouth. Instead, I began smoking a gram of meth or more a day, hoping I would overdose and die so I could be with my sister again or at least stop feeling the pain of my never-ending failures. One day I snapped and beat a woman for something I don’t even remember. I was at the lowest point in my life and on the verge of being incarcerated. In a brief moment of clarity, I discovered that I still had some fight in me. I decided that I needed to get clean so I could fight for my daughter and repay my mother for everything she has done for me, and everything I have stolen from her. When Effie picked me up, I was scared. Another person got into the car with us and I spent the whole ride trying to press myself up against the car door, especially after he made a remark about me sucking his dick for money and I offered to help him find a vein. Over the last forty-five days, that man has become my closest friend whether he likes it or not. He’s becoming the anchor that makes me want to stay sober, while my daughter is the air that keeps me afloat.”

The confession hangs in the air as I soak up what I just shared. Hearing it spoken makes me realize how lucky I am to still be alive.

Effie hugs both Peeta and I because he refuses to let me go at this point. “Thank you for sharing that.”

Peeta and I don’t move as he tells the room about his mother locking him in the trunk of the car or whipping him with a belt. I squeeze his hand when he tells us about how she’d turn the shower all the way on hot and throw him in there while his Dad was at work. I try not to read ahead even though the paper is in my line of sight. Instead, I focus on how my shoulder is getting damp from his tears and bring my hand up to his cheek and just rest it there.

Even though group is emotionally exhausting, we don’t have any time off. Someone is coming to see Peeta to talk about his paintings and Effie has a surprise for me. I outwardly hope it’s Avery, but she leads me to the small barn. The door resists being opened at first, but gives way with only a little complaining.

The floor of the barn is covered in pale hardwood with worn off finish from years of use and neglect. The mirrors are dusty and the lights flicker and buzz, but it’s a perfect little dance studio.

“Aerobic exercise helps take the mind off cravings,” Effie tells me. “We checked - the sound system works and there’s a stack of CD’s by it. You’re free to use this space between group meetings, during free time, even at night if you see fit. Just be smart about it.”

I look up at the blonde who has helped me so much up to this point. I’m still not sure how well I’ll fare once I step out of her life. “What do you mean?”

“This space is to be used for dance and exercise, nothing more.” She thinks Peeta and I are going to come in here to fuck.

“Peeta’s just my friend, Miss Trinket. You don’t need to worry.”

Effie smiles and pats my cheek. “You’re doing remarkably well. Haymitch and I are inclined to believe it’s your friendship with Peeta that’s aiding in your quick recovery. We won’t intervene, unless you two start engaging in behaviors that may increase either of your chances for relapse.”

The woman hugs me as if she’s proud of me. I’m not sure anyone’s been proud of me in a while. “Just have fun in here - exercise, dance. Hell, if you want to just come in here to escape the commotion of the house, do that too. Who knows? When you get out of here, maybe you could become a professional dancer.”

I snort, “Please, I’m a used up whore… No one would think I’m pretty enough to get through the doors of the audition. Plus, who knows whether I can still dance?”

Effie tells me to make myself busy in here, that she’ll be right back. The door moans as it closes again and I’m alone with only the buzzing lamps to keep me company. Filling the space with music seems like the only sane option.

I slide a Katy Perry disc into the CD player and jump when the speakers crackle to life. I keep the remote in my hand so I can start and stop as I see fit.

When I’m dead center in the room, I press play. It takes two listens of E.T. to get fully into it, but sure enough, just like my mind awakened after my detox, so does my body.

I forget everything that has ever held me down, every set back in my life and just focus on the music as my feet carry me around the room.

I go through the song again and again, moving a new way each time. Sometimes I stick to a slower pace, others I’m mostly on the floor, others I push myself to the fastest tempo my body can manage and flop to the floor when the song is over because my heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest.

Every inch of me tingles, and it’s back again, happiness.

There’s soft applause coming from the corner that I didn’t notice because of the thumping of my own heartbeat. I pick myself off the wood floor and see Effie and a man I’ve never met. He’s tall with dark skin and a shaved head, and he’s approaching me.

I want to back away. Strangers are unpredictable, but Effie wouldn’t bring someone here who would hurt me.

“Katniss Everdeen?” I nod slowly as I stand to greet him, “My name is Cinna. Effie’s told me so much about you.” He holds out his hand to shake, his large, warm one eclipsing mine. “Let’s take a walk.”

I expect to go outside, but he leads me right up to the wall of mirrors. “Miss Trinket?” he asks in a teasing manner.

She waves him off and strides over, handing him a piece of paper which he places in my hands. “Who is this?” he asks.

I stare at the woman in the picture. She’s in a grey camisole and jeans. Her skin is covered in pick marks but they’re mostly on her chest and her arms. Her skin seems to be the only thing hanging from her bony figure, as there’s no fat or muscle on her bones. She has knotty brown hair and dull grey eyes with no light in them. Her teeth have browned and chipped from smoking crank, maybe even a little rotten. The woman is me the day I came to Panem.

“She’s me…”

Cinna shakes his head. “That woman is your past. She’s a piece you will carry with you forever, but look in the mirror now.”

I haven’t really looked at my own reflection since getting here. I didn’t want to see the person I had become during detox and then I just got used to ignoring my reflection.

I have fat on my bones and even some muscle. My hair is no longer knotty, though still long and wild from not being cut in over a year. The pick marks on my skin are gone, or mostly gone and my face is significantly less blotchy. My teeth are still bad, though.

I step forward and reach out, unsure whether or not the woman in the mirror really is me. I touch my reflection and press my hand against hers. “I never thought I could look so normal…”

“With the court’s permission, we’d like to release you into Cinna’s care. He’s fought the same battles as you and Haymitch, and I believe he will be the perfect sobriety sponsor for you. We also believe, no matter how unconventional it may be, that the relationship you and Mr. Mellark have formed is essential to both of your successes. At the end of both of your ninety days, we’d like to send the two of you off with Cinna and his housemate, Portia, provided you come back every Saturday for group and therapy.”

I stare at her in the mirror dumbfounded; she must be lying. “Will I be able to contact my mother and see my daughter?”

Effie pauses, “While we recommend you keep your distance until you’re sure you can handle it, we can’t keep you from contacting them. If you are up for it, we would like to invite your mother and daughter out to visit sometime before your treatment is finished and you are released.”

“But first, I think it’s important that we help you realize how much the person you are today and every other day from this point on deserves love and respect. I want you to find confidence again.” I nod, staring at my reflection again. “So… to become the woman you want to become, what do you think needs to happen first?”

I don’t even have to think. I pull my lips down, “My teeth…”

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

A few days after meeting Cinna, I’m told I’m being signed out for the day and to wait on the front steps of the house. At eight o’clock sharp, a sleek black car pulls up. If I was still hooking, he’d be a good customer. Money, most likely clean, good fucking money.

Cinna steps out and walks up to the front porch. “I’ll just be a minute,” he tells me. I nod and hug my coat tighter as I wait. Fall is coming, and so is Avery’s birthday. Several minutes later, he comes back out the front door. “All right, you’re signed out until eight o’clock tonight. Ready?”

I don’t know where I’m going, but I follow.

My day is full of the buzz of a dentist’s drill, Novocain shots, and bright lights in my eyes. I try and sit still through the discomfort; I got myself this far, surely I can survive this day.

The dentist tells me I’m fortunate. My teeth didn’t rot, they’re just discolored and chipped in a few places so I won’t need another visit. After what feels like five eternities, I’m pulled upright again and handed a mirror. I don’t know how to feel about the thin pieces of porcelain on my teeth now, but the telltale sign of my past addiction has been ground off my teeth and covered.

The woman in the mirror doesn’t look like a drug addict, she looks like a woman who hasn’t plucked her eyebrows in a while or bothered to do her hair.

The woman in the mirror looks like she could be successful with just a little push. Cinna even drives me to Hallmark so I can pick up a card for my baby girl’s birthday.

 _I love you so much. You are the air I breathe and I hope I can see you soon_.

 _Love you forever, Mom_.

I lick the yellow envelope and address it. Cinna says he’ll get it in the mail so it reaches my mother’s by the second of September. I like Cinna, I decide.

Peeta’s the first person I show when I get back. “Look, look!” I start, barging into his room unannounced. He’s on his bed with a sketch pad in his lap. Since his mind became clear again, he’s found the desire to draw. Peeta looks completely different from when we first got here. He’s no longer shaggy-looking, but clean cut.

We’re doing it, we really are.

I pull my lips down so he can see the dentist’s work. “Are they dentures?” he asks, leaning in.

I shake my head. “No, they’re on my teeth,” I explain, tapping them with my nails.

He tilts his head, looking at them before hooking his finger under my chin. I don’t freeze up as he leans in and presses his chapped lips to mine. At first we’re completely still, waiting for someone to make the second move. I rest my hands on his shoulders and lean in more, pushing him up against the headboard.

I feel something inside me stir, a strange tingling that starts between my legs and radiates all throughout my body. I lean forward, trying to press my chest to his, or any other inch of me that I can manage because that’s what my brain is telling me I need - every inch of me against every inch of him.

I’ve never actually felt desire before, pure uninhibited desire. It’s a rush I don’t even think meth could give me. It’s the hope that I’ll live to see another sober day, the peace that will keep me away from my old master. It gives me the strength to know I can do this. I can meet all of my goals.

I’m the one to pull away for fear of getting caught, but Peeta doesn’t let me get very far. He just barely brushes his lips against my forehead.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for over a month…” he whispers as I sit down next to him so my arm is touching his.

I hug my knees to my chest and rest my cheek on my kneecap. I can’t help but grin. This is what happiness feels like. It’s freeing and I know that someday it’ll fade a little before coming back depending on what the road brings, but I’ll keep feeling it as long as I keep the pipe out of my life.

The kiss has derailed our entire night. I can’t stop grinning, Peeta can’t get back to drawing. We don’t want to make a habit of it because we’re not sure how they’ll react here…

“What were you drawing?” I ask, trying to peek at the book.

He picks the discarded book up off the bed and flips it open again to show me the beautiful forest where our friendship started.  Close to the center is the rough outline of two human forms, the only part that has been done in great detail are the hands, held together at the pinkies.

“It’s going to be us,” he confesses.

“Why are we only holding pinkies?” I ask, pressing my fingers to the bark of a tree, expecting to feel the rough texture.

“Holding hands seems more like you think the person is going to slip away. Pinkies…” he reaches over and hooks mine with his, linking us together, “Is like you know the person is going to come back to you and stay by your side no matter what, but you still want a part of you touching them.”

I smile and kiss his smooth cheek. “When did you know that you liked me?” It seems so juvenile to ask, but I need to know.

Peeta doesn’t hesitate. “I wasn’t lying when I said I remembered you sucking my dick. I thought you were really cute, even while strung out. Though this is better, _so_ much better. I think if we’d partied together while we were on the streets, we would have been poison to each other. Our memories of each other would be about getting high. Instead, we’ve made memories of getting sober, of helping each other through the pain. We’re making memories as we start our new lives.”

I rest my head on his shoulder as he talks and his hand comes up to stroke the braid I’ve been wearing since realizing my hair was making me look like a banshee. He brings the tip of my braid up and rubs the underside of my lip with the strands of dark hair, then tries to tickle my nose with it. “If you tickle me, I’m not to blame for any teeth I knock out,” I threaten. I can’t control my flailing limbs.

Peeta sighs, “Fine…” he tells me, extending the word. “But I knew I wanted to kiss you, like really kiss you, when you checked on me after waking up on our first day here. You didn’t know me from Adam; in fact, I stupidly pointed out something you probably wanted kept secret and you still checked on me, helped me out, and even sat with me.”

“You would have done the same for me,” I confess. I really do think he would have.

Peeta nods slowly. “I kind of did. While you were crashed out, I checked on you whenever I could get out of bed… so pretty much whenever I wasn’t vomiting. I’ve seen people withdraw from meth on their own. They get suicidal really quick.”

“To be honest,” I start, putting my hand on his thigh, “It was the first time in a while where I didn’t want to die. And I’m sorry about the belt comment.”

Peeta pulls up his sleeves. “It’s fine. You couldn’t have found a good vein even if you wanted to.” The inside of his elbow is a mess of track marks, collapsed veins, and other scars. I’ve seen them before, but this is the first time I’ve ever studied them. I pick my head up off his shoulder and cradle his arm in my lap, mapping a trail of injection sites from his bicep to the spaces between his fingers. “You should see them try and draw blood from me for tests…”

I know his mother helped nurture a feeling of inadequacy into her son, which made him want to shoot up that first time so he could try to be a better artist and make money… but I still can’t imagine getting to that point where sticking a needle in yourself is the better option. I have no room to talk, though – I started smoking glass because coke wasn’t enough, plus it’s cheap as shit.

 

* * *

 

 

My days become pretty routine, which is comforting. Wake up at seven am, brush my teeth, use the toilet. I no longer get a pre-walk snack because I’m no longer a ravenous dog 24/7. Even though it’s fall, we still walk through the woods every single morning, rain or shine. I shower after the walk and come to breakfast late so I can have the large table mostly to myself. I’ve discovered that I love books. Not just books about sex, but about knights slaying dragons, a lucky few overthrowing an evil empire; any small escape from the world is enough for me. Peeta will usually join me after his shower and sit in the chair next to me, close enough that our arms touch. He sketches, while I continue reading. We go to group together, take our walk in the forest, and then part ways to go to our individual therapy sessions.

Dr. Aurelius has been trying to teach me coping mechanisms for when things get tough once I’m back on the outside. I like meditation the most; it’s like a nap for part of your brain. After my session, I head back to my bedroom and nap, but always wake up with Peeta curled up around my body. I like sleeping next to him.

He takes the art supplies they bought for him into the barn with me where he lays down an old sheet and I dance until my body wants to quit or dinner time hits. After dinner, we watch TV with Effie, Haymitch, Finnick and Johanna. All of the Careers, except for a blond ex-heroin addict named Cato, and the morphine addicts are gone. Several left because they were sick of rehab, while some left because they reached their 90 days and elected to not continue the program.

Cinna visits me regularly and brings Portia with him so Peeta can get comfortable with her. We’re almost like adoptive children - they have to get to know us before they finally say yes and take us in. When Cinna visits me one day, he brings a whole mess of hair shit. He cuts a lot of my hair off that is apparently dead and dried out, and then asks me what I want him to do to the rest.

It’s another thing I realize I have control over, my hair. I tell him I want a red streak in it because fire is red and creates ashes, which phoenixes rise from. It’s the kind of loopy connect-the-dot thinking that is hard for me to do, but he follows me. What I get is mostly red with some orange and just a touch of yellow in the middle layer of my hair, so it just kind of pops and isn’t ‘in your face’.

I love it. Peeta says it looks like my hair is on fire when I dance.

Peeta and I are about to hit sixty days of sobriety, which is a miracle considering what we were like when we arrived here.

Effie’s phone starts ringing halfway through _Hell’s Kitchen_ and she excuses herself just as Gordon Ramsay digs into someone. I go back to my book, which is about a woman who lets a man whisk her away to an island in the North Sea when she has no other options and she learns to be a protector for vampires. It’s strange, but I like the character.

Effie comes back right after the episode ends. “Katniss, you will be having visitors tomorrow. You’re going to be excused from your regular sessions, but have a special one in the evening.”

The only noise in the room is my book crashing to the ground.

 

* * *

 

 

I can’t sleep, so I share the joy with Peeta, who is still suffering from insomnia. They say it could go away in a few months, a few years, or never.

He’s wide awake on his bed, sketching. “Hey you…” he whispers as I close the door quietly behind me and make my way to the bed. He pulls the covers down for me and hands me a pillow so I can snuggle up as close to him as possible. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, reaching down to pet my head.

Now sober, his fingers are agile and weave through the mix of red and black strands in my hair. “I’m going to see my baby tomorrow…” I move so my head is in his lap, but I can’t sit still, so I sit up on my legs.

“She’s four now…” He listens intently as I tell him every little thing about Avery that I thought I didn’t know.  The only foods allowed to touch on her plate are peas and mashed potatoes, she’s afraid of thunderstorms, she’s allergic to strawberries, and she’s very prone to ear infections.

It’s that moment when something in the air changes. Peeta’s fingers are laced with mine and resting on the bed. He sets his sketchbook and pencils down on the nightstand and finally stretches his legs out in front of him.

I lean in to kiss him slowly at first, but soon enough I’m straddling his lap, holding onto his t-shirt as I try to taste every inch of his mouth. His hand comes up to cup my breasts through my thin shirt, and as his thumb brushes against my hardened nipple, I moan into his mouth. He’s clearly satisfied with the reaction and does it again and again.

I’ve never had a man want to explore my body for both our pleasure. I know I have to reward him for his efforts, or at least return the favor, but the second I worm my hand under the elastic band of his boxers and just barely brush the tips of my fingers against his velvety cock, he stops me.

“No, Katniss…” he mumbles against my lips.

My skin grows clammy. _He doesn’t want me? I thought he wanted me. I made him hard! How could he not want me?_

I’m too embarrassed to move but I want to escape before the shameful tears of rejection start. Peeta wraps his arms around me. “Please don’t cry…” he begs, rocking me from side to side. I can still feel him hard against my thigh. “I don’t want our first time together to be on a full sized bed in rehab because you felt obligated once I took an interest in making you feel good.”

I worm my arms around his waist and squeeze, “You do realize I want you not because you were a whore, but because you’re smart, and funny… You care so much, and you’re incredibly strong,” he sighs contentedly. _He actually cares, he honestly likes me…_ I don’t know why I’m so surprised… Maybe I do deserve love, or whatever this can turn out to be.

“Plus… needles. I’m a dead ringer for diseases.”

“And I was a whore…” I sigh dejectedly.

 

* * *

 

 

Though my mom and Avery aren’t getting here until close to lunch time, I still get up to walk with everyone else. I go about my day and even go to group because I’m starting to like sitting in a room talking about why I’m fucked up. It’s humbling.

Peeta tells me he can’t walk with me after group, as he has something he needs to get done. We’re in the final days of Indian Summer, so I don’t mind not sweating like a pig.

I walk on the treadmill in the gym, but get turned away from my individual session. Apparently, Dr. A prefers to talk to me and my mother together tonight.

I get a quick shower, mostly to kill time, and dig through my closet for any clothes that might be appropriate. The only thing I can hope is close to okay is a powder blue spaghetti strap dress with lace coming up the bodice from the elastic waistband.

I find a pair of dirty white sandals and determine that they need to be cleaned up. I’m the only one in the bathroom, so I leave the door propped open. I don’t know why, it just makes me feel less enclosed.

“Well, look at you! Got a hot date?” I hear Finnick ask as I scrub my shoe.

“I get to see my kid today,” I tell him happily.

“Still can’t believe you have a kid. You’re still a baby.”

“Katniss?” I hear Effie shout down the hall, “Your family is here!”

“I may be a baby to you, but _my_ baby is waiting for me down the hall,” I tell him while hurrying down the corridor, my half-cleaned shoes dangling from my finger.

“Momma!” Avery screams once she sees me. I run to her and fall to my knees, pulling her into a hug that I never want to let her out of. I kiss every inch of her face, her hands, her arms. _I’ve missed my baby so much…_

 

* * *

 

 

We walk around the farm most of the day, talking about my progress and what they’re doing on the outside. Mom doesn’t believe how healthy I’m looking, or how happy I seem.

When we sit down for lunch, Peeta joins us with a small chocolate cake he made for my daughter’s birthday. I didn’t even know he could bake.

Avery likes him a lot, and that’s all that matters. My daughter likes the one adult in the world I trust completely. Peeta even offers to watch Avery while I have my therapy session with my mother, but I can’t let her go. Plus, I can’t put that burden on him.

Much to my surprise, it’s not just Dr. A in there, but Effie, Haymitch, and even Cinna. I feel like I’m in front of the firing squad.

“Katniss, we would like to congratulate you on the progress you have made up to this point. It takes no shortage of courage to do what you have done.” I smile into my daughter’s hair at the compliment. “But the hardest part comes next. You’ve gotten yourself clean in a controlled environment, which means your next step is to re-enter the outside world.”

My mother looks confused. “Where is she going to go? She can’t live with me…”

“Cinna here has offered to be her sobriety sponsor. He’ll give her support, a place to live, and help finding a job. There will be a move, though. Cinna and his friend Portia, who is taking in another one of our clients, live in New York,” Effie tells her.

Mom gasps. “You’re taking Katniss away from her daughter and me, just when she’s getting better?”

Effie nods in response. “Right now, distance is helping her. Being close to where she could so easily get her hands on meth again could cause her to relapse.”

I smile. “Mom, it’s… it’s an hour and a half or so train ride, and I’ll be able to use the phone.” I didn’t know that the move was to New York, but I’m willing to go wherever to keep myself sober. “It’ll be a good thing, I promise.”

I’m willing to do anything to get Avery back in my life, not to mention keeping myself from the slammer. Once that’s settled, everyone but Dr. A. leaves. In my individual session a few days before, I told Dr. A. that I wanted to tell my Mom what happened while I was in foster care.

“Katniss?” he gives me the go ahead to spill my guts.

“Mom, there was something I never told you when I was a child. I never told anyone, actually.”

Mom frowns, and I hug Avery for comfort. “What is it, honey?”

I don’t want Avery to hear, but I still can’t let her go, “When P-” her name gets caught in my throat, “When Prim and I were in foster care, our foster father would come into my room at night to have sex with me.”

Dr. A. doesn’t let my flaw in logic slide. “Katniss, sex is something two or more people want to have with each other when they reach the age of consent,” he reminds me.

I nod slowly. I’ll have to say the word, maybe it’ll feel freeing. “My foster father raped me,” I state as Mom covers her mouth with her hands. “Several times a week… but he never touched Prim. I would have killed him if he touched Prim, Momma… And I blamed you for so long. From the moment you got out of the hospital up until a few weeks ago, I blamed you.”

“Momma, don’t cry,” Avery scolds, putting her tiny hand on my cheek. I cover her hand in my own.

“And I know it’s not your fault. You were doing what you needed to do to get better. It wasn’t your fault he did that to me, it was his.”

Mom gets out of her chair and wraps me in a tight hug, sandwiching Avery between us. “I’m so sorry, Katniss… I wish you’d have told me sooner.” I wrap my arms around her small form, digging my fingers into the fabric of her shirt.

“I wish I did, too…” I admit.

Mom and Avery stay until the sun goes down. Peeta spends most of his evening entertaining my daughter with his sketches.

“He’s cute,” Mom tells me out of Peeta’s earshot. He’s too busy using the corners of every page of his sketchbook to make a little cartoon to entertain my daughter.

“I know,” I tell her smugly. “He and I are going to live in the same house when we get out. Our sobriety sponsors live together.”

“As long as you two are being safe.”

I sink down in my chair. “Mom…” I groan, “We aren’t having sex. We want to wait until we’re both emotionally ready and out of here.”

Avery lets out a squeal of delight which lights up Peeta’s face. “He’s so good with her…”

“I know,” I tell her, sighing contentedly.


	6. Chapter 6

More days go by with the same routine, though other people have visitors. A short brunette woman for Finnick, who introduces herself as Annie; and the last one I remember, a well-built guy for the remaining Career, Cato.

I don’t even know what month it is, or what date. I think it’s almost October.

“And make a fist…” Another day, another drug test. The needle stings as she tries to find a good vein. “I hate needles,” I confess for the hundredth time as tears start springing from my eyes. She’s failed the first time, and I prep for the next.

“You have thin, deep veins,” the nurse tells me. “Make another fist.”

She gets it this time, and when I leave, Peeta’s next. “Make sure you don’t flush the toilet, they’ve gotta dip their stick in it first.”

He smirks and I must imagine him pinching my butt on the way back.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you ready for this?” Effie asks, putting the car in park.

I’m dressed nicely in a simple black suit that Effie is letting me borrow. Today will be the first day since the trial that Gale and I will be in the same room.

Peeta faced his demons, and now it’s my turn.

Gale is brought into a cold room in shackles. The only two people in the room with us are Effie and the guard.

“Jesus fuck, who put you in a suit?” I ball up my fist; trying to stay calm here is going to be hard. “Seriously, how much dick did you have to suck to get that?”

“None, I’m borrowing it,” I tell him through my teeth. I want to strangle this man, take the handcuffs from his hands and use the chain to cut off his air supply as he writhes in my grasp. I want to feel him go lifeless in my arms.

“Gale, I recently went into rehab because of an incident involving me and another woman.”

“Get caught fucking in the back of the grocery–”

“I broke her fucking nose with my fist and if you don’t shut the fuck up, I will do the same to you,” I hiss.

“Katniss…” Effie cautions. I’m not sure what she expected by bringing me here. This man killed my sister, talked me into whoring myself, and bought me meth and my first pipe, telling me it would help me get loose.

“Fine…” I sigh, taking a few deep breaths. “Gale, I recently went into rehab because I assaulted a woman, and the courts won’t give Avery back to me unless I’m clean. Part of the program is facing the demons in my life. Mine just so happen to be you.”

He puts up his hands. “Wait, you _lost_ our daughter?” He sounds so judgmental, like he’s asking how I could fail at the one thing my body is designed to do, nurture a child. The urge to strangle him is growing.

Fortunately, I rehearsed what to say to him in the car. “Gale Hawthorne,” I say loudly, “There are things that you brought into my life which changed it forever. You took advantage of my age and my innocence and helped me down a destructive road where I sold my body to pay for my addiction. Without those experiences, I would never be the person I am today. I am getting clean and I will be a better person because of it. Thank you, have a nice fucking life.” I stand up and look Effie right in the eye. “Effie, I’m ready to go back now.”

Gale isn’t done, though. “I lost my brother, too, you know!” he shouts.

I spin around; happiness isn’t the only emotion that’s slowly coming back. Rage is there, too, but unfortunately I don’t really remember how to handle it, so I go off. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you fucking _dare_ act like the victim here because of Rory! Rory is dead because of _you_! You killed him when you killed Prim!”

“The #5 bus killed your sister!”

“Because you were too high to tell what was going on and blew through a red light! You don’t have my sympathy, Gale! I hope it eats you at night that your brother killed himself! I really do! I hope he comes to you in your fucking dreams!”

Gale shrinks back a little. “You. Do. Not. Have. My. Sympathy. Hazelle, Vick, and Posy will never heal after what you did. They have my sympathy. You, on the other hand, deserve every ounce of the pain you’re feeling and I hope you never forget it.”

Gale has one more card up his sleeve. “I’m going to fight for custody of her when I get out, Katniss.”

I slap my forehead. “You killed my little sister, Gale! The judge isn’t going to overlook that because you might be her father!”

I turn to Effie. I have to leave, I can’t stand to be in this place. “Effie, please take me back… I can’t-”

Effie nods, her eyes still wide. “Come on, honey…” I don’t care if Gale sees me weak. I hurry into Effie’s open arms and let her guide me out of the prison while I cry slow, leaky tears.

They continue the entire way home. Effie tells me that was a brave thing I did, but we could have done without the yelling. Nothing sticks it to someone like calm, hateful words, apparently.

Everyone’s at the dinner table when we get home. I look down at the ground and hurry to my room. The second my face hits the pillow, I scream and scream and sob. I cry so violently I think I may vomit.

My sister’s dead, my sweet baby sister. I was supposed to keep her safe and she’s dead. I brought the man who killed her into her life.

This is it; this is the pain I buried away with the pipe.

I don’t know when it happens, but Peeta joins me in my grief. He doesn’t ask any questions, and the snot that’s coming out of my face doesn’t gross him out. He holds me until I pass out from my own exhaustion. I think he stays with me the whole night.

Effie and Haymitch excuse me from group activities for two full days. During that time, I don’t talk to anyone, I don’t eat, and I leave my bed a total of three times to use the toilet.

The second night, my room lights up only for a brief moment. I think it’s Peeta, but it’s actually Haymitch. “Sweetheart, everyone’s worried about you. You have to come out sometime. The boy’s going nuts; hell, even Johanna is less sarcastic.”

I snort, but continue staring at the wall. “I’ve never wanted to smoke more than I do right now. I can’t handle this, Haymitch…”

He knows what I’m talking about, but asks anyway. “Handle what?”

A big part of my treatment is talking out the problems I want to bury. “I can’t handle the fact that my sister is dead. I can’t handle that it was my boyfriend who killed her, and that he thinks people should have sympathy for him because his brother is dead. I can’t handle the two years of repressed emotions just slamming at me while the almost eight years of numbness goes away.”

The bed sinks a little as Haymitch sits down. “Sweetheart, no one is born ready to go through even half the shit you have. But tomorrow, you’re going to pull yourself out of bed and live the day to its fullest, even if it’s just to spite everyone who’s ever done you wrong.”

I look up at him, dumbfounded.

“I’ve been doing it for close to thirty years. I’m an expert at dicking people over by living life to its fullest.”

I don’t know where I dig it out of, but I smile.

And Haymitch is right. I have no choice but to live each day to its fullest. Prim would be beside herself if she knew I was locked away in a dark room.

I make it out just before dinner on the third day of my seclusion. I shower and brush my teeth before putting on my softest pair of sweats and most comfortable t-shirt. They’re just sitting down at the table when I take my seat.

It’s silent and awkward for a good fraction of a second.

“Oh, good, you’re back. Pass the salt?” Johanna asks. I hand her the shaker. “Peeta’s shit at passing things. I swear, you ask him a question and it goes in one ear and out the other.”

I drop one hand below the table just before Peeta does the same. I go to lace my pinkie with his, but he intertwines his fingers with mine and gives my hand a strong squeeze. Peeta thought he was going to lose me.

 

* * *

 

 

Holding off on sex with Peeta has started to become difficult. Especially late at night after everyone’s gone to bed, when he has me pressed up against the headboard, his arms on either side of me. So far all we’ve done is make out, but every night, it gets harder and harder to say stop.

It’s next to impossible to say ‘No, we’re waiting’ when I’m pressed up against a tree in the forest with his cold hands warming up in the cups of my bra.

And I’m sure it was hard for him to derail things when I decided I wanted to watch him paint and ended up giving him a hand job through his ever tightening jeans.

“Five more days…” he whispers against my lips. With the court’s blessing, I have been granted permission to move in with Cinna and continue my quest for sobriety with Peeta by my side. I don’t know if I’m ready, but honestly, I don’t know that I’ll ever truly be.

I’m afraid of the outside world.

Finnick and Johanna were released a few weeks before us within a few days of each other. Cato checked himself out and there’s a new cycle of addicts detoxing as Peeta and I pack our bags.

“Ready?” a voice behind me asks.

I look up at Effie, who is sporting a bright green streak in her hair. As a “congratulations for 90 days without meth” present, Effie and Haymitch surprised both Peeta and myself with two large bags of clothes to start our new life.

All Peeta had were torn up jeans, ratty t-shirts and a hoodie. I had sweats with worn elastic, a few less than professional dresses, and a pair of accidentally crotchless panties.

Peeta’s been giddy as fuck the last five days. He got a call from his sponsor, Portia, and since then, he’s been bouncing off the fucking walls.

My exit from Panem is as quick as my entrance to group. There is no warming up to the real world; it’s there, full of temptations.

Peeta and I hug Haymitch and Effie goodbye, or well, ‘see you later’. In addition to going to NA meetings, we’ve agreed to come and visit, especially when things get tough. Apparently, Cinna and Portia have been doing it for years.

Peeta and I decide not to go back to Philadelphia, and make a silent agreement to never return if possible. It’s the place where our addictions started, and it has no purpose in our new, sober lives.

We don’t immediately stop at our new home, but at a small art gallery.

Peeta practically drags me inside like I dragged him to the woods on that first morning. “Portia runs this place and…”

I’ve never actually paid attention to Peeta’s paintings. I know it’s horrible, considering most of his work was done while I was in the room. I just figured if he wanted me to see, he’d ask.

What I see first is the deepest pit of hopelessness anyone could ever dig for him or herself. I’m looking at a bird’s-eye view of a tiny apartment. One twin mattress on the floor, garbage everywhere, dirty dishes in the sink, and a single man sitting in the corner with a spoon in one hand and a lighter in the other.

The blonde tuft of hair poking out of the baseball cap he has on backwards makes it blatantly obvious that this is Peeta; this is where he was living before coming to rehab.

The second is a closer look at Peeta with a belt around his calf, two bloody arms, a bloody hand, and bloody feet. It’s Peeta at his lowest. So deep in his addiction that he can’t find a suitable vein.

The next painting is a turning point, a woman in a car wearing torn clothes and a scowl on her face pressed up against a car door. Our first meeting, besides the blowjob incident. Then there’s us eating a meal of crackers and ginger ale on the bathroom floor.  Smaller canvases track Peeta’s road to sobriety with me by his side. There are purposefully blurry ones of us in bed talking, maybe to show my meth hangover. There’s me dancing while Peeta paints; then there’s Finnick, Johanna, myself, Effie, Haymitch and Peeta at the dinner table. Finnick’s stabbing food with his fork to emphasize his point, which was that briefs are still a viable underwear option.

The last painting hanging in this small corner is a colored version of the sketch Peeta was working on. Us holding hands, tied together only by our pinkies. There’s no need to cling because we’ll come back to each other’s arms, but a little contact is nice.

“How did you survive this?” I ask, teary-eyed. “Not just the… you know.” I don’t know if I should say ‘drug use’ on the outside, or if Peeta’s okay with it, “But reliving it to paint it.”

Peeta shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. “It made me face the demons inside me and accept them.”

“Come on, you two, it’s time to go home,” Cinna tells us, pulling me away from Peeta’s tragically beautiful paintings.

I can’t even make myself stop grinning as we leave. Peeta wanted his art in a gallery. And now he’s living his dream.

Cinna and Portia share a large apartment on the Upper West Side. It’s sterile-looking, yet very modern with dark floors and white walls. The appliances in the kitchen are stainless steel, the couches are black leather; it looks too high class for two people who have only been sober for ninety days.

Portia is in the kitchen when we get home, humming to herself as she stirs something that smells delicious cooking away on the stove.

“There they are!” She turns from her cooking and grins, “Sorry I couldn’t come get you two. I figured _someone_ should feed our little family.”

And I burst into tears. Uncontrollable, horrible, snotty tears. They came out of nowhere, and I’m not even sad…

Peeta wraps his arms around me, cooing in my ear, trying to get me to calm down. “I never thought I’d make it this far…” I sob into his chest.

Peeta kisses the top of my head. “Me either…” he finally tells me.

There are hands on me, but I don’t mind them. One rubs my back, another squeezes my shoulder.

Being on the outside scares the ever loving shit out of me, but I’m just going to have to jump in.

 

* * *

 

 

After dinner, Peeta and I both try to clean up but Cinna practically shoves us out of the kitchen, telling us to go find our rooms and unpack, or we can choose to share a room. They don’t judge.

Peeta and I stare at the closed doors of the two vacant rooms. “Do we..?” I start to ask.

Peeta shrugs. “You know I’m going to be coming over to your room anyway…”

He opens the door to the bedroom we’re going to be sharing and tries to carry my bags in like a fucking gentleman, but the look I give him makes him put his hands up defensively. “Or I won’t be nice…”

I drag my duffel bags into our room with a smug grin on my face.

We’re just about unpacked when Cinna and Portia come into our room. “See? I told you they’d share. They’re just like us, except I think they kiss…” I blush and look away at her words. “They most definitely kiss.”

Cinna rolls his eyes. “Are you going to embarrass them more or are we going to get down to business?”

Portia sticks out her tongue. I like her. She’s a free spirit, but not so free that she makes me want to back myself into a corner to let her have enough space. “All right, a few ground rules. You two are invited to live with us for as long as you need. No matter where we move to, as long as you two feel that you need to be here, the door will always be open. There will always be a bed and food for you. We do, though, reserve the right to evict you if either of you start using again. Nothing illicit is to come through those doors except for pornography.” Cinna snorts, and she looks confused.

“You mean explicit; illicit porn is nothing I want in my house.”

She nods slowly. She must have the same confusion that I do. Cause and effect are difficult some days for me, as well as words that sound even remotely alike. “You two are welcome to drink every now and then. A glass of wine at dinner is perfectly okay, but none of us are at places in our lives, with what we have in our pasts, where it is okay to get drunk. It will lead you straight down the path of destruction and relapse.”

Portia blows out a deep breath through her closed lips. “Well, I have to get to the gallery to set up some stuff. If there’s anything you need, just call… Oh!” Portia leaves for a fraction of a second, and when returns, she hands each of us a brand new cell phone.

“This is a big, confusing city. With these, you’ll be able to figure out the subway, the streets, or get a hold of us.”

“Because we bought them, we do have the right to check on who you’re calling,” Cinna adds. They want to make sure Peeta and I don’t make new connections to our old lives.

“Just relax tonight, sleep, do whatever you want. Tomorrow, we’ll get down to business.”

I fully expected to have sex with Peeta on our first night of freedom; instead, we sit on our bed and I read while he sketches. We listen to music, and by eleven I turn out the light by my bed, as Peeta fell asleep almost an hour earlier.

 

* * *

 

 

“And you’re liking New York?” We’ve been here for a week, but Peeta and I still haven’t left the apartment on our own. We’re both too scared. This is a new city to us, but we could easily find a fix of our old masters in about ten minutes.

“I love it… there’s so much to do, so many things to see. How’s Avery?”

Mom sighs. “She misses you. Had a fever the other night and just wanted you. Have you found a job yet?”

“Cinna is going to let me work as a receptionist in his salon,” I tell her. It’s the first honest job I’ve ever had so I don’t exactly know what to expect. “He took me shopping for clothes.  Apparently they wear a lot of black. And heels, I’m going to be in heels for like eight hours a day,” I pause and don’t think before I speak next. “Good thing I’m used to walking the streets in them!”

“Katniss!” my mother scolds.

“What? I accept that I was once a prostitute.” I look up at Peeta, who has all but zoned out. His insomnia has been really bad this last week. I can still sleep like the dead, but he’s back to tossing and turning. He takes walks around the apartment and then comes back to bed. He’ll usually kiss my shoulder and tell me how thankful he is to have me in his life.

He always thinks I’m asleep, but it’s damn near impossible for me to sleep when he’s not in the bed with me. I’m too afraid of the outside world to relax.

“So how’s your boyfriend?” she asks teasingly.

I give a heavy sigh. “Well, he’s never asked me, so he’s not my boyfriend.”

Peeta sleepily raises a hand to point at me. “That’s a lie! I asked her, but she was still half asleep. She went uh-huh.”

I roll my eyes at my apparent boyfriend’s silly antics.

 

* * *

 

 

Peeta and I finally gather enough courage to leave our home without an escort. It takes eight days.

Without drugs to numb the senses, the outside world is a loud place with a lot of sudden movement that makes Peeta grip my arm so tightly that it may break.

Even though it’s fall, we head straight for Central Park, though most people are retreating to indoor shops to hide from the chill.

It’s quieter here, but not much. Still, we relax, as Peeta moves to walk behind me with his arms around my waist.

When I look down at his hands, I can still see the track marks. Part of me hopes they vanish, while the other hopes that they stay so I’ll never forget how lucky I am that he found his way into my life. Peeta could have very well overdosed.

We’re a clumsy four-legged monster walking down a gravel path.

“Peeta, did you have your last hurrah?” I ask quietly.

He tenses. It’s a completely inappropriate question to ask, but I feel like I need to know.

“Yeah… a speedball the morning Effie came to get me,” he says glumly. “Did you…” he clears his throat nervously, “Do something similar?”

“Blacked out, smoked a blunt, smashed my pipe… does that count?” He kisses the back of my head and doesn’t say anything.

We head back shortly after that. We’ve dipped our toes into the real world, which is enough for us today.

Cinna and Portia are shocked when we tell them we left on our own.

 

* * *

 

 

That night there’s something different about the both of us, something braver.

Instead of just sitting in bed barely touching, doing our own independent tasks, I’m completely naked in Peeta’s lap. The only thing separating us is the thin layer of latex from the condom we’re using.

We found them in the drawer of my nightstand. It would really be irresponsible to go without one, considering I was a whore and Peeta shared needles on occasion. One of us might have something.

I lean in to kiss a particularly bad looking scar on his neck as I slowly ride him. This isn’t about money, meaning I can actually enjoy myself. And I do.

I rise off of him a little too much and he slips out of me. We laugh and he shakes his head before he guides himself back in. I love touching every inch of him.

Peeta doesn’t last very long; he’s embarrassed at first, but it goes away when I let him play with my pussy until I’m squirming against him.

“You’re the first man to ever make me come,” I tell him.

Peeta pulls my sweaty body closer to his. “I should be proud, but I’m kind of sorry…”

I look up into his bright blue eyes, full of life and can only hope mine share the same light.

“It doesn’t matter now…”

Sobriety isn’t about learning how to be sober, it’s learning how to live again. It’s learning how to handle the emotions drugs deleted from our lives. It’s senses heightening, memories getting better, and it’s pain… so much pain.

It doesn’t exactly get easier to handle, we just learn to adapt.

I fall asleep to him drawing patterns on my back with the tips of his fingers.

 


	7. Epilogue

_Ten years later_

“Be gentle, Logan…” I remind my son as he shakes my stomach, trying to excite his younger sibling. My two year old looks up at me, confused. I’ve told him a hundred times that the baby is safe inside me, so why can’t he shake it until it kicks?

“That’s my brover…” he says, poking where we think the baby’s butt is, though for all we know it could be a shoulder.

“That it is,” a voice says from behind us. “And he’s going to be very upset when he comes out and you’ve been shaking him like a bowl of Jell-O.” Avery scoops up her youngest sibling; I can’t believe she’s fourteen already.

“Where’s Hayden?” I ask. Though we live in a smaller apartment, my four-year-old daughter Hayden is silent only when she’s doing something she shouldn’t be.

“Watching movies.” Avery shifts her brother so she’s cradling him, “All right, let’s go, little monster. Time for your nap…”

I’m so proud of my baby girl. Without being asked, she’s stepped up to help with the things I’m struggling with. This pregnancy hasn’t been an easy one, and she’s always there to help.

“Ave, have you heard from your Dad?” I ask when she comes back to the couch to join me.

Avery shakes her head. “Not yet.” She cranes her head to check the clock on the wall. “It’s only three, Mom… he won’t leave you hanging.”

I have an important engagement tonight, one I refuse to do without my husband by my side.

After rehab, Peeta chose to go to culinary school. He spent five years working for other people and decided he wanted to open his own café. I, on the other hand, found that I couldn’t handle school. The stress made me want to start using again, so I dropped out after my first semester and decided I could handle writing about my experiences. It turned out to be the perfect de-stressor, especially when my ex decided he wanted to fight for custody over the child we assumed was his.

Gale wanted partial custody, but a paternity test proved that he had no claim. Peeta has raised Avery like his own child since day one.

Peeta gets home just as Logan gets up from his nap. “Can you change him?” I ask, holding our son at arm’s length. I’m not sure how he pees out of his diaper, but he manages to do so at least twice a week.

“Sure…” He takes the wet toddler from me and kisses my nose. “Were they good today?” he asks, laying our son down on the changing table while I strip his crib.

“Yeah, Hayden was quiet most of the day. I think she might be getting sick,” I tell him as I carry the wet sheets to the washer.

As soon as I start putting the sheets in, I hear him yell, “Don’t roll away! You’re still naked!”

Fatherhood wasn’t an easy thing for Peeta to adjust to. Yes, we’ve had Avery since she was four and a half, but a five year old who’s about to start school and an infant are two completely different monsters. Hayden’s first low grade fever sent him into a panic the likes of which I’ve never seen before, and when she was fussy because she was cutting teeth, he thought he broke her.

All that aside, he’s the best father I could have to help raise my children. He’s much more patient than I am, never getting frustrated when Hayden asks him a thousand questions about nothing in particular. He also gets up in the middle of the night when Logan escapes his crib. Plus, the two kids we’ve already had together are gorgeous… although Avery is genetically mine and mine alone, so it might be me.

 

* * *

 

 

“My name is Katniss, and I am an addict. Ten years ago, that was one of the hardest things for me to admit. Even as I was alone in a dirty apartment, sore and bruised from a night of whoring myself on the streets with nothing but the pipe to keep me company, I still couldn’t admit that I was an addict,” I sigh and look at the crowd of people listening to me talk. They’re here for me and only me. I turn the page; in front of me is a bit of the book I’m working on, and I smile just thinking about it.

“It has become easier for me to call myself an addict - even though it’s been ten years since I touched a pipe - because that is all I will ever be to society. At thirty five years old, I go to PTA meetings, take my children to ballet lessons, and clean the sheets in my son’s bed when he misses his diaper twice a week. But once someone finds out about my past, that’s all I will ever be to them, an addict.”

“After ninety days in rehab, ten years sober, one perfect marriage and three perfect children later, I still hear whispers behind my back that the scars on my face are from when I was strung out. Or that I’m using again; that my husband was late picking up our daughter Avery from ballet class because he was shooting up. This is what we, as humans, do. We focus on the one mistake that a person perhaps couldn’t stop. Instead of helping them, we shame someone for doing what their brain is telling them they can’t live without. We laugh at the addict on the street instead of holding out our hand and making rehabilitation programs accessible. We addicts know that we live on the fringes of society. Don’t you think my husband knew what shame felt like, sitting alone in an empty apartment with a twin mattress and a single sheet? We knew what we were doing was dangerous; we knew it was bad, but our brains told us that it was either our drugs of choice or immense pain, sometimes even death.”

I flip the page again, “Still, we will always be addicts. Peeta will never just be the restaurateur who lives in SoHo with his wife and three children who ruined our floors painting on his days off. I will never be the mother who forgets weekly that we are drinking one percent milk instead of skim and that our fourteen year old no longer eats fish.”

“I want to call for a change, but just like the addict knows nothing other than his or her addiction, the world knows nothing other than to shame the addict.”

I look up from the papers in my hand. “That’s something I’m working on,” I tell them after the quiet applause dies down.

“If you have any questions for me, I will be in the back,” I step away from the podium and turn to the side. “I’ve gotta get off my feet or this little one will keep pounding me in the kidney,” I tell them as I rub the swell of my stomach. At thirty-eight weeks along, I could technically pop at any minute, and with how uncomfortable I’ve been feeling the last week, I hope it’s soon.

Peeta is in the back waiting for me. After five years of marriage, he still takes my breath away. The track marks have faded and only a few scars remain, mostly on his neck and the crease of his elbow. He’s grown a goatee because the full beard left my face and thighs uncomfortably raw.

He meets me halfway through the crowd and places his hand on my lower back. “Easy there.”

The kids are probably destroying the high rise apartment that Cinna shares with his husband and adoptive daughter, Audrey. Portia, on the other hand, has moved to Paris to follow her heart and find love, or some cheesy bullshit. She sends us some pretty interesting pictures. 

I hate spending nights away from our children, but it’s almost a must at this point. The nights off from parenting are meant to be relaxing for the two of us. Once every month or so, we just take a break; Peeta and I sit on the couch, watch old movies, and eat a very quiet dinner. We even have very loud empty house sex, which is where child number four came from. Even after ten years sober, I still wake up at night, afraid that I won’t be able to survive in the real world. On those days, I only get out of bed to use the toilet. I hate putting the extra burden on Peeta, but he survives those days by throwing himself into whatever needs to be done.  One of his bad days found us an apartment to live in when it was finally time to leave Cinna and Portia behind.

I’m at the bookstore with my husband until close to eight, which any more is late for me. In the city that never sleeps, Peeta and I can’t seem to get enough of it. We don’t have the thriving social life that some people come to New York for. We can’t go to nightclubs, even though the Big Apple is rotten with them, though Peeta and I do enjoy a glass of wine with dinner every now and then. 

We’re boring, and we love it that way.

“Let me get that for you,” Peeta offers as I wrestle with my messenger bag. I refuse to leave the house without my laptop. Peeta knows he’s not allowed to touch my computer ever since I trusted him with it and he left it on the subway. I give him ‘the look’ and he backs away. “Or you can get it. That’s good, too.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, if I don’t eat in the next five minutes, I’m literally going to die,” I groan as Peeta tries to hail a cab. “I got this,” I offer. One way or another, I’m getting home to the package of Oreos I have hidden from my children.

 

* * *

 

 

“You look exhausted,” Peeta tells me after helping me out of the cab.

I scowl, “Well, it’s your son’s big head!” We don’t know the gender yet; in fact, we want it to be a surprise. I just assume that I’m having a boy because Avery and Hayden were so much smaller than Logan. “Can’t he just hurry up and come out?”

Peeta rolls his eyes and wraps his arm around my expanding waistline. “Hey, we make perfect babies, and that takes at least nine months.”

“Nine months and nine days with Hayden. Nine months and five days with Logan.”

Peeta snorts, “I can’t believe you remember it. I just remember making myself ill with excitement.”

It’s already taking me an extreme amount of motivation to climb up the stairs to our apartment. “Our next place is going to have an elevator,” I moan.

“We’ll start looking tomorrow,” Peeta promises. This means he’ll probably start looking online when he can’t sleep tonight, because after ten years, Peeta is still plagued with insomnia but only while I’m pregnant. I know it’s his nerves, what else could it be?

Peeta stays behind me on the stairs, his hands firmly on my backside practically pushing me up into our home.

Once we’re inside and the dogs have been taken for their last walk of the evening, we head to the kitchen to celebrate this precious anniversary. At our next NA meeting, they’ll hand us coins in honor of our ten years of sobriety. But tonight, it’s just us in our kitchen with a sleeve of Oreo’s and the gallon of milk I refuse to not drink directly out of.

“When I was eight, I told my Mom that I’d eat Oreo’s morning, noon and night when I was an adult,” I tell my husband. “Joke’s on you, Mom! I’m thirty-five and eating Oreo’s with my husband celebrating ten years sober.” Now that I’m clean and she’s not raising my child, Mom’s focusing on her own life. She even remarried and moved to the suburbs. It’s good for her to be away from all those bad memories.

“You’re living the dream of every six year old everywhere,” he tells me, handing me an empty glass. If it wouldn’t make me vomit, I could kill this gallon of milk without a second thought.

Peeta snatches it away from me and fills our glasses, “Cheers,” he tells me, holding his own up.

“To ten years of sobriety,” I tap my glass against his.

“And many, many more…”

That night, the first night Peeta actually fell asleep with me, I end up having to shake him awake so he could take me to the hospital.

Cinna gets the kids to the hospital by seven in the morning, two hours after baby Estelle greeted the world.

“My brover?” Logan asks, looking down at his baby sister.

I shake my head as she nurses, “No, honey, your sister.”

Logan looks upset by this news. He wanted a brother so bad, not another sister. He climbs down from the hospital bed in a huff as Hayden climbs up. “She’s all wrinkly…” she tells us, “And pink.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Peeta pick up our son. “See that, little man? They’re our girls, and we have to do everything we can to keep them safe…”

I reach out my arm and pull Avery the rest of the way in. “Our apartment is going to be so cramped…” she groans.

Peeta somehow dissolves Logan’s anger with logic. If he had a brother, he’d have to share his toys. And like a switch, Logan’s on board with having a new sister.

Later in the day, I hold Estelle while Logan takes a nap on my legs. Hayden spends hours channel surfing, while Avery sits in the corner on her phone and Peeta keeps a watchful eye on all of us. He’s been so strong these last ten years, even after his almost relapse.

It was after my second miscarriage when I came home to find Peeta locked away in our bathroom. Once I finally figured out how to unlock the door, I found him sitting on the edge of the tub with a filled syringe in his fingers. He was so stressed and upset about losing two children he never even met that in one afternoon, he found another connection in New York City. That night was the reason why I didn’t tell Peeta I was pregnant with Hayden until I was three months along. It’s actually pretty easy when the father of your child leaves hours before you wake up for the day and both of you rarely drink.

I know deep down that Peeta and I will always be branded as addicts, but the family moments like these are the ones I wish we could be remembered for.


End file.
